In the past most ubiquitous technology i.e. ‘Lock and Key’ system through authorized access has been used for securing assets. Assets have been secured by the use of Locks and authorized access is given by placing complete trust on the person to whom a unique Key is provided that can open the Lock. Though the access may be for short duration under specific set of circumstances, handing over the key makes the asset vulnerable to access at all times and for whatever purposes. The problem is compounded when the Asset, whether moving or immobile is ‘remote’ and away from the owner's immediate supervision. There is no assurance to the owner that the lock has NOT been operated upon by someone else either legally with another duplicate key or tampered with illegally without leaving any evidence to show for it. Further if several persons have to be given access to the same asset and the same person has to access several assets, or both, there is a very complex management of keys, authorizations and records management. Invariably the breach of security occurs due to unscrupulous persons taking advantage of ‘loopholes’ in such a complex process.
In the prior art it is observed that an asset is secured with complex locks with/without keys, some have monitoring mechanisms that report the location of the asset as also status of the lock, others have processes for authenticating the key with passcodes comparisons. Thus it is paramount that the security of these assets is not only protected but a process and mechanism needs to be in place that gives the assurance that it is not breached and that security breaches will be detected immediately.
There is a need for the ‘owner’ to have the comprehensive status of all assets at any given time, whether secure, whether open, or by whom it was opened, whether moving on planned routes and so on. There also needs to be recorded history of all operations performed on the lock for analysis and reporting.